


Make It Your Own

by Avery_Kedavra



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Also kind of, Angst, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders is a Sweetheart, Caring Logic | Logan Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Angst, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Growing Up, Inspired by Logan's Playlist, Inspired by Music, Kid Sides, Logic | Logan Sanders Angst, Logic | Logan Sanders Is A Good Friend, Logic | Logan Sanders-centric, Morality, Morality | Patton Sanders is a Good Friend, Songfic, Storytelling, Streaks by ANIMA, Sympathetic Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Teen Sides, Time Skips, kind of, stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:34:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24145213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avery_Kedavra/pseuds/Avery_Kedavra
Summary: When they were little, the Sides wrote stories.Then came the Split. The good-bad hero-villain stories leaked off the page. They grew up, and although Roman still wrote stories, he wrote them alone.It's only after Virgil is accepted that the Sides start to tell stories again.Logan isn't sure how he feels about that.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Dark Creativity | Remus & Deceit, Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan, Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan & Deceit Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan & Morality | Patton, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Deceit Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Logic | Logan Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Logic | Logan Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan & Morality | Patton, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders & Deceit | Janus Sanders, Deceit Sanders & Everyone, Logic | Logan Sanders & Everyone, Logic | Logan Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders
Comments: 11
Kudos: 176





	Make It Your Own

**Author's Note:**

> This is from a prompt I received on Tumblr, asking for a songfic from one of the playlist songs. I need no excuse for Logan angst and I love Logan’s playlist to bits, especially Streaks. Also I noticed that in Are There Healthy Distractions, Logan doesn’t help with the story, despite commenting on the inaccuracies of Frozen and encouraging the others to help fix them. I’ve never written a songfic before, so apologies if the lyrics seem disjointed or random. I did try listening to Streaks on repeat as I wrote this, so that might have helped a bit.
> 
> Anyway. Have some Logan angst. And yes, this is very long. I couldn’t write drabbles if my life depended on it.
> 
> Warnings: some insecurity, blood mention, and one (1) sexual innuendo from Remus
> 
> I'm @averykedavra on Tumblr and open to prompts!

_Seven years old with a brand-new coloring book  
Every page with the perfect design  
You can decide on the colors that you like  
As long as you stay in the lines_

When they were little, the Sides wrote stories together.

It was before Dark and Light sides, before the Split, before anyone was old enough to wonder why they were spending afternoons on the carpet thinking up stories. King always started the stories. Anxiety pulled the story into darker areas and came up with the best villains. Morality made sure the hero was a nice hero and that there was always a happy ending. Deceit assisted with making it believable.

And when they wrote their way into a corner, or forgot how their fantasy world worked, or needed an explanation of how frogs were born, Logic stepped in.

Those stories were the best. Thomas filled notebooks with them. They were slapdash and strange and included sentences like “and then the dragon attacked and breathed fire and it was really hot fire” and “but that wasn’t nice so the hero apologized” and “it was happily ever after except then a witch turned him into a frog.” They weren’t great stories, probably not even good. But they were Thomas’, which made them special.

As long as the story followed three rules, it was a story.

It needed a hero. It needed a villain. And it needed an old man with a beard to tell the hero how to be a better hero. Those were the rules. Logic came up with those rules. Even at age seven, he knew how the world worked. He knew rules made people take you seriously.

Of course, sometimes the hero was a carrot and the villain was broccoli and the old man with a beard didn’t actually have a beard, but by and large, they followed the rules.

When the rules leaked off the page, things got bad.

The Split came. There was a hero. There was a villain. There was Morality, trying his best to shove everyone into boxes. If that’s how it worked in stories, that’s how it should work in real life, right?

Logic got to be good. He was never sure if he liked that.

They didn’t tell stories together anymore.

They didn’t do anything together.

Thomas grew.

_Tell me what did you learn at school today  
Did they show you what you're worth in numbers and signs  
You can read every word, you can solve every equation a hundred times  
Just to wonder what comes next, oh_

Roman wrote stories sometimes.

He’d read them aloud at the dinner table. They were fantastical but not bad, though Logan never told him that. Patton complimented him but always reigned himself in from adding on. Maybe he remembered the damage those stories did. Maybe it was to stop himself from sounding like he was critiquing Roman’s work. Roman took his stories seriously. They meant the world to him, and he would labor for days to get them sounding just right.

It was ironic, perhaps, for Logan to wish for him to take them less seriously. But Roman was different than Logan. Roman wasn’t meant to strive for perfection or hone away at words until he was pulling all-nighters and tossing stories in the trash. He was meant to unwind them slowly on a lazy summer afternoon, adding whatever characters he wanted, his passion for storytelling tying every disparate element together.

But Roman was older. And Roman had rules now, for the stories. 1, it has to have a happy ending. 2, it had to be dramatic as possible. 3, it needed to be perfect.

And 4, an unspoken rule, was that he needed to write them alone.

If Roman accepted help, Logan eventually figured out, Roman felt like a failure. So he burned himself to the wick trying to make the story work.

But he couldn’t, not always. Not completely. Not without Patton and Virgil and Remus and Janus. Even Logan could tell that he needed the others. The stories might be technically flawless, the writing polished, but it didn’t have the same heart.

Ugh. Feelings. The bane of Logan’s existence.

It didn’t matter anyway. It wasn’t his issue. He was Logic—he had no place for flights of fancy. Roman could write stories, but he couldn’t. That was just the way things were.

Logan focused on school. He learned to multiply and divide. He guided Thomas through countless late nights and filled his mind with knowledge. That was his job, and he did it will. Thomas was clever. Intelligent. Smart. All the things the teachers called him. Others called him a nerd, but neither Logan nor Thomas minded.

Thomas was going to be a chemical engineer.

There was no need to worry about stories now. Flights of fancy were childish and immature.

When he told Roman that, in a fit of anger, Roman didn’t speak to him for a week. Even when they did speak again, it was never the same. Logan wished he could explain how he felt—how he simultaneously wished for Roman to grow up and for him to stop growing up. To be more serious and yet more carefree. These competing urges made no sense to Logan. He knew that he should try to ignore Roman’s creative pursuits.

But he couldn’t help but listen every time Roman told a story.

And he couldn’t help but wonder…after Thomas gets his degree, after school is over…what then? Maybe Thomas would start an acting career or something Roman wanted. What then?

Logan was numbers and logic and grades. Without that, what was he?

He didn’t know, and that terrified him.

Thomas grew.

_All these years of filling out papers  
Building a future, keeping your head down  
Tryin' to keep a head on your shoulders, keep it creative,  
Make it your own somehow_

It was Virgil who started helping Roman again.

They worked so well when they were younger. Virgil loved other worlds where things made more sense. He also had a knack for plot twists and redemption arcs. But after Anxiety became the antagonist, Roman seemed to forget their days of writing stories.

Only after the Moving On video, where Thomas commented on their shared past, did things change.

It was small at first. Virgil started listening more intently to Roman’s stories, and after a few weeks, commented. Just short sentences, small things. “Nice phrasing” or “cool idea” or “oh, hell yeah.” Roman always smiled when he heard Virgil’s feedback.

Then, one morning, Virgil asked whether Roman could have the villain from a previous story help the character in his next one.

It wasn’t an order. It wasn’t even a suggestion. It was a question, hesitant and unsure. Logan noticed Virgil chewing on his lip and how he immediately tried to qualify the request, saying “’cause you said you needed a sidekick and it could contrast with the hero’s personality and I think it’d be cool and yeah.”  
Roman liked the idea.

And soon Virgil and Roman could be found tangled on the ground together, running ideas past each other at the figurative speed of light, notebooks surrounding them with red and purple pen scrawled on each page. They’d get wrapped up in stories. Patton would call them for dinner, and they wouldn’t hear.

Patton joined, eventually. He’d butt in when the story grew too dark or sad, saying “Why don’t you lighten things up?” or “Maybe he could apologize before they keep going, he was kind of rude.” His humor brightened the stories, balanced out the dramatic elements, and kept them on track to a happy ending.

Perhaps it was naïve of Patton to only accept happy endings, when the world was fully soaked in shades of gray and good things didn’t always happen to good people. But Logan couldn’t find it in himself to chide him. Of course Patton would want fairy tales to make more sense than reality. Virgil had been accepted. Deceit and the others lurked on the edge of their world. Things were on the cusp of changing—Logan could almost taste the danger in the air. Everyone was waiting for the figurative hammer to fall.

They still wrote stories of heroes and villains. The villains often got accepted and changed their ways, courtesy of Virgil, but it was still black-and-white, good-and-bad, dark-and-light.

Logan understood it would always be like that.

And he understood he had no place in their make-believe. Thomas was an actor now, making videos online, but Logic still maintained order. He kept the figurative stage working so the others could perform.

He did not perform with them. He did not write stories with them, unspooling plot on hot afternoons with Roman flopped on the couch and Virgil lying on the floor and Patton making lemonade in the kitchen. He stayed in his room and perfected Thomas’ schedule. It was not his job to be creative.

If he smiled seeing them so happy, he kept his smiles to himself.

If he sometimes thought of endings to their stories, or built upon the worlds they created, or fleshed out a backstory, those words stayed in his head.

He wouldn’t make their stories his own. He wouldn’t ruin the one thing that kept them carefree and unconcerned with reality.

Logan was not that selfish.

_Cause it's all a piece of the plan  
It's something you'll understand  
When you're older_

The Others liked to tell stories.

Remus was no surprise. He was the other half of Creativity, after all. And yes, his stories did often swerve in R-rated directions that made Patton flush and Roman wince. But he had a knack for language and rhyme. Fun turns of phrase were his favorite. Besides, Logan did have to admit that ‘bad’ or ‘forbidden’ creativity was sometimes necessary for a story to have a real punch.

It took a while for Roman to accept that, though. Even after the Others started living in the common room and popping in for breakfast and were no longer the Dark Sides but Janus and Remus, Roman still kept his stories to himself. Patton and Virgil, seemingly feeling guilty about siding with Roman on the matter, stopped having story sessions altogether. It was like Thomas’ teenage years all over again.

Logan missed seeing them brainstorm together, talking over each other in their excitement, Roman running around and acting out scenes while Virgil mused to himself and Patton squealed at every new plot point.

Fortunately, the silence didn’t last long. One morning while the new family was having an awkward cereal breakfast, Roman blurted out “Hansel and Gretel except the witch has a daughter and it’s from her perspective.”

Logan was used to this. Roman often thought of ideas on the fly. He’d usually scribble some keywords on a napkin or the back of his hand. Sometimes that was enough to remember the idea later. Sometimes it wasn’t, and Roman would whine endlessly when he lost an idea.

But this time, before Roman could apologize or write it down or even explain to a very confused Janus, Remus added “Yeah, and she and Gretel are doing it. Lesbian love.”

Roman froze for a second, staring at Remus, who continued to slurp his cereal as if nothing had happened. The entire table was quiet, waiting for Roman’s reaction. Logan prepared for Roman to shut down the idea, or leave the table, or make fun of Remus.

“Good idea,” Roman said.

It was Remus’ turn to freeze in place.

“That’s good,” Roman said again. “And she could teach Gretel magic, too.”

A slow grin made its way across Remus’s face. “Yeah, she learns all sorts of cool stuff. But she loses her temper with her brother—”

“—and turns him into a gingerbread,” Roman continued, “and doesn’t know how to turn him back. And the witch can’t find out or she’ll be furious with her daughter—”

“So to get the counterspell, she sneaks around to get the witch’s book, but she gets caught—”

“—but her girlfriend saves her, of course!”

Remus grinned wider. “Except now they’re stuck in the witch’s house, and she knows they care about each other, so she can use them against each other!”

“Oh, no.” Roman’s worry was at odds with the way his eyes twinkled. “Guess they’ll have to plan a sneaky escape, then. Good thing they know magic and outnumber the witch!”

“Except,” Remus fired back, “they’re really new to magic and still don’t have it under control yet, plus they’d have to leave Hansel behind as a gingerbread—”

“Gretel’s girlfriend wants to leave and come back for Hansel, but Gretel is worried about her brother and decides to—”

Roman and Remus were glowing, practically, eyes wide with excitement. They gestured wildly as they spoke, identical smiles on their faces. Only when Janus coughed delicately did they stop and turn around, seeming to remember other people were there. They shifted awkwardly, the moment broken, and returned to their cereal.

But that day onward, storytelling sessions were once again part of life.

With two more people in the living room, two more voices, and the stories grew into something entirely new.

_The day they leave and it's all before your feet  
You've heard all the tips and the tricks  
So you hum to a tune singing you'll figure it out soon  
You're a smart kid, tough kid, but you're still a kid that grew_

Logan had been asked, once twice and more, to join their stories.

Their sessions were more complex now. They played games sometimes, or held contests. Sometimes they worked on the same story, trading sentences or paragraphs or simply shouting out ideas as Roman and Remus scribbled them down. Other times they worked in smaller groups or pairs, even on their own. Karaoke nights were replaced, sometimes, with story nights. They told ghost stories, love stories, action stories, anything that came to mind. They had games where they had to guess who wrote what story. They had games with rules for each story—tell a story in ten sentences, five sentences, three. Eventually Roman created a Rita Skeeter-style moving quill that captured every word of the sessions. They filled notebooks upon notebooks with ideas and stories and life.

Logan read through those notebooks sometimes. When he was bored or nostalgic or simply having an inadequate day. For whatever illogical reason, seeing the scratchy handwriting as the quill struggled to keep up with their words always made him smile. Even if the words themselves were not always of top quality, there were some wonderful stories in there.

Roman wrote the dramatic stories, tales of princes and dragons and fair maidens in distress. Sometimes it was maidens and dragons and fair princes in distress. But he could surprise them, could pull off emotional dialogue and heartfelt sorrow quite well. Some of Logan’s favorite stories were his dialogue exercises, when he put pen to paper and wrote a conversation with no background. They were simple and elegant, every word refined.

Patton wrote the sweetest stories, almost Aesops in nature, fairy tales and small stories that always had a lesson in the end. He liked talking animal stories and stories where the dog didn’t die at the end. He could also pull off emotion, mostly in the bubbly happy field, but when he was writing anger or sadness or guilt, Logan could feel it in his stomach. It roared out from the page, dripping with emotion. Patton poured his figurative heart into those stories. It was a way, Logan figured, for him to express his more negative feelings in a positive way. Whatever worked for him.

Virgil liked realism. This was ironic, perhaps, because the real world caused him so much strife and anxiety. But he liked writing worlds just to the left of reality, maybe with ghosts or vampires or witches—Virgil also liked the supernatural. He liked taking villains or traditionally villainous characters and putting them in a better light. And he liked realistic fiction or urban fantasy because, as he confessed one day, he liked writing things that “made sense.” Real life was messy and dangerous, so he escaped to a version of real life that was safer and less confusing, where everyone had concrete reasons for doing things and nobody did anything unpredictable.

Remus and Janus worked together. They would literally finish each other’s sentences. That worked, because they both had an undying love for horror. Remus, of course, liked the shock value. He liked wrenching a story off the rails and plunging the characters into deeper peril when they least expected it. He liked gore and blood and mass murder, but that expressed itself in detective stories and murder mysteries. In fact, it was Janus who created the scariest stories. He was an expert on psychological horror and would often leave all the Sides shaking and white-faced. It was almost terrifying how quickly he could embody a character, not in the way Roman did with figuring out their mannerisms, but understanding their fears and subconscious thought. Janus also liked writing villains or morally grey characters. Again, of course.

Logan liked reading their stories, even the gruesome or sappy ones. It felt like the Sides were kids again, brainstorming. As if they had undone all the strange paths and complicated histories and growing up. All the good and bad and in-between, all the fights and tears and compromises. Like they were small and simple, sitting on the floor with coloring books and crayons, telling stories like the ones they heard on TV.

They asked Logan to join them, sometimes, and he always said no, pretending to ignore the way their shoulders dropped. He would be terrible at stories, and he had better things to do.

And he had spent his whole life building Thomas’ rational thought. His seriousness. His intelligence. He spent all his time throwing out anything childish or naïve and focusing on being a grownup. On following the rules. On not wasting time with frivolous activities.

To turn his back on all that and tell stories…that was a sacrifice Logan didn’t feel ready to make.

He wished he could understand how the others did it, wished he could understand how to strike a balance and find a way to let go without feeling out of control. He envied their carefreeness, their happiness, their love.

He could have that, if he wanted. He knew he could. He could have it all and lose everything he’d ever gained.

Logan had clawed his way through school, torn himself apart maintaining order, pushed everything inside of him that screamed and cried and felt into a very small speck deep within him. Because it was necessary. Because he was Logic and it was his job.

He didn’t want all of it to mean nothing.

He wanted to be an adult, not simply a kid that grew.

_Throw ‘em in the water  
They will sink or float  
If you don't then you will never know_

“Please?” Roman asked for the fifth time. “We want to have a partner guessing game and there’s an odd number of us.”

“I’m not going to tell you again,” Logan said. “I’m not interested.”

“Aww, Lo.” Patton frowned. “You’d be good at it, I bet! Why not?”

“I have work to do.” Logan didn’t, but he could find some. “Maybe some other time.”

“You don’t mean that,” Virgil muttered from the couch. Patton gave him a reproachful look and he quieted, still staring at Logan from under his bangs.

“Stories are so fun!” Roman grabbed Logan’s hand and tugged him forward. “You’re missing out, Specs! Can’t you just relax and write with us?”

Logan looked around at Patton’s pleading face, Virgil’s loaded stare, Remus’ bright grin, and Janus’ piercing gaze.

“My answer has always remained the same,” Logan said, trying not to appear angry. “I don’t understand why you persist with this. I have made my stance on stories very clear—”

“Why?” Virgil asked.

“Why what?”

“Why don’t you like writing stories?” Virgil bit his lip. “Or do you just…not like us?”

Logan blinked. “Virgil, I—of _course_ I like you all! I find your company invigorating, if sometimes tiresome—”

“Then why?” Virgil hunched slightly under Logan’s gaze, but determination still shone in his eyes. “I just want to understand, L.”

“I…” Logan couldn’t lie, or Janus would see right through him. “I…writing stories is not my area of expertise.”

“Yeah, me neither, I’m Anxiety,” Virgil pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

“And I’m Morality,” Patton agreed. “It’s not about expertise, it’s about having fun.”

One of the many things that scared Logan. ‘Fun.’ An unquantifiable concept. Confusing and nebulous and such a childish word for a childish idea. Doing something because it felt good with no other reason. Was that logical? Self-care was logical, was this self-care? Logan didn’t like how he scrambled to justify their actions. Stories were not logical. There was no point in trying to figuratively elbow his way into the situation.

Janus tilted his head slightly, like he could hear Logan’s thoughts. Logan quickly glanced away.

“C’mon, dork.” Remus was painting his nails bright red with what Logan assumed was some sort of blood. “I can… _make it up_ to you if you’d like.”

Logan cringed at Remus’ suggestive wiggle. “No thank you.”

“Please, Lo?” Patton’s eyes were wide. “Just once? It’s not the same without you.”

“Exactly,” Roman agreed. “I have no one to argue with about semantics and plot construction! We could debate the usefulness of the Hero’s Journey, I know you think it’s outdated—”

“It is, and that’s irrelevant.” Logan folded his arms and turned to go. “I am not taking part in your frivolous, childish activities. I hope you have an enjoyable time. I shall be in my room.”

“ _Frivolous?_ ” Roman gasped. “It’s not frivolous!”

“ _Childish?_ ” Patton asked, looking devastated.

“Logan.”

Logan glanced over his shoulder. Janus wasn’t looking at him anymore, instead tugging at his gloves. But it was unmistakably his voice.

“How _dare_ you say such things!” Roman continued, shaking a finger at Logan. “Shame on you!”

“It’s not childish,” Patton pleaded. “And that’s not a bad thing!”

Logan ignored them, still watching Janus. After a few moments, Janus spoke.

“It is childish,” he admitted with a shrug. “And probably frivolous. But it’s an enjoyable activity anyway.”

“I know,” Logan said, “but I don’t have time for—”

“Doing something childish,” Janus continued, still not looking at Logan, “doesn’t make you any less of an adult. It’s possible to strike a balance between leisure and work, juvenile and serious…good and bad.” He glanced at the others, giving them each a pointed glare. “We won’t take you less seriously if you participate, right?”

“Of course not!” Roman declared. Patton nodded vigorously. Remus hummed in affirmation, and Virgil gave him a small smile.

Logan’s mouth was dry, and a strange substance seemed to coat his airways, making it difficult to breathe. “I—I appreciate. The gesture. But—”

“Just once, okay?” Roman gave him a hesitant half-smile. “You can’t know until you try, Specs. Just once, for us?”

Logan swallowed. “I—you want me here?”

Roman shrugged. “You’re a bore sometimes, but you’re the smart one. I can’t keep track of half my fantasy races.”

“It’s true,” Virgil agreed. “Most of them are copied from DnD manuals.”

“Hey!” Roman complained. “And how do _you_ know that?”

“I know things.”

Logan cleared his throat. “Well. Um.”

Everyone’s eyes shone as they waited for him to respond.

“Just once,” Logan said slowly. “For—for now.”

Roman smiled and handed him a pencil.

_Throw ‘em in the water_  
They could sink or float  
But unless you let it happen, you will never know 

And once again the Sides wrote stories together, lying on the carpet in the summer sun.


End file.
